St. Paul City Council moved to end Flock contracts
The short version: St. Paul's city council is moving to cut ties with Flock Safety, a small but encouraging sign that elected officials can still say no to ALPR creep.
Our Take
KARE 11's report on St. Paul's city council voting to end its Flock Safety contract is a reminder that these systems aren't inevitable — they're policy choices, and policy choices can be reversed. A single intersection's worth of cameras might sound minor, but the fact that a city government looked at the cost, the privacy tradeoffs, and the lack of clear benefit and chose to walk away is exactly the kind of accountability we rarely see.
Most cities roll out Flock cameras quietly, with little public debate and even less follow-up on whether the technology actually reduces crime or just quietly builds a database of everyone's movements. St. Paul's reversal suggests that when residents and council members actually scrutinize these deals, the math doesn't always favor mass surveillance. That's a template other cities should be paying attention to, not a one-off curiosity.
Credit to KARE 11 for covering a story that a lot of local outlets skip entirely. If you want to see whether ALPRs are watching your own neighborhood, check our camera map, and if you'd rather your city follow St. Paul's lead than expand its surveillance footprint, our take-action page has the tools to push that fight forward.
This is DeFlock The USA’s original commentary. The video above is the work of KARE 11, published on YouTube — full credit to the creator.